THE JOYS OF AIR TRAVEL

Disclaimer: If anyone is offended by colorful language then maybe you had better skip this post because their just aren't enough non-curse words to adequately describe the current experience of flying halfway around the world. I wrote this on our recent cruise a couple days after arriving.

I'll start by asking a question. When exactly did flying become a fucking nightmare? I am old enough to recall when air travel was half the adventure of a far away vacation. It used to be such a civilized endeavor – room to actually stretch out a little, fellow passengers eager to ask about your plans, friendly flight attendants & service that included edible meals.

When I graduated from high school, a friend & I actually drove to San Francisco airport to simply wander around watching the passengers arrive & depart. This was when anyone could walk to the gates, not just ticketed passengers who had been frisked, searched, scanned, questioned & radiated with xrays. Anyway, we gazed at the airplanes jetting off to faraway places & fantasized about traveling the world since we were out of school!

Now, 45 years later I am literally halfway around the world on a cruise ship that departed Istanbul, Turkey. Currently, all is well, smooth seas, full stomach & a semi-decent night's sleep behind me. My high school fantasy of jetting off to foreign lands is far from the reality of present day air travel.

Here is my experience of flying from SFO to Istanbul. Our itinerary began with a drive to San Francisco (about two hours from home) on Saturday afternoon where we spent the night in a park 'n fly hotel before our 7 AM flight on Sunday morning. We awoke, not so bright-eyed & bushy tailed, at 3:45 AM on Sunday morning to begin our adventure.

The five hour flight from SFO to Newark, New Jersey was on time & glitch-free. Our initial itinerary had included a 1 hour 40 minute connection to our international flight to Istanbul. Experience is a wonderful teacher. After missing our flight in New York on our trip to Egypt several years ago, we both agreed, nope, that is not enough time. No way! We changed the initial flight to an earlier one that allowed us 3 hours & 35 minutes before the international flight.

After a leisurely lunch & sitting in the Newark airport for close to 3 hours we thought we were home free. Oh, what silly travelers! Just as I went to the bathroom for the last time before boarding, they made an announcement. That is never a good thing. Our plane had mechanical issues. Shit, shit, shit! They were getting a different plane & our gate would now be changed.

The mass exodus began as we all trekked to gate C102 from C128, not nearly as short a walk as it sounds. Our new plane would be landing from London shortly, then needed to be cleaned, fueled & restocked for us. Now our time was getting too close for comfort. It is something that is totally out of our control but a few well placed swear words really do seem to ease the stress – son of a fucking bitch! Here we go again. We finally left Newark 2-1/2 hours late.

You are so crammed into airplanes nowdays that even short people like me struggle to get comfortable. If you are 6'3” like Lou forget about any semblance of comfort. It makes for a miserable 9-1/2 hours when the seat reclines maybe 3 inches & you only have room to cross your legs if you pull your foot up around thigh level & force it over your knee.

The trip to the tiny bathroom down the narrow aisle has you bouncing off of arms & shoulders or tripping over errant feet of soundly sleeping people. How do they sleep like that? It also involves standing in a line with passengers & flight attendants squeezing by initiating body contact that is normally reserved for sexual partners! And, by the way, what do people do in airline bathrooms that takes so damn long???

None of this eases the somewhat unnerving experience of knowing you are hurtling your way at 500+ miles per hour across the night sky, over the ocean, with 200 other people, in a long skinny tube that can crash & kill you at anytime. When you also consider that this huge heavy aircraft has somehow propelled itself off the ground into the air & is bouncing all over said sky, it is best not to even think about it. Yes, it amazes me how quickly we can travel the world by air now but I sure as hell don't understand how it all works.

Fortunately, the procedures at Istanbul airport moved quickly & we arrived at the gangway of our cruise ship a full 11 minutes prior to the deadline for boarding. Nothing to it! The reason it was such a tight schedule is that a week prior to sailing the cruise line informed us that they had changed the departure time from 8 PM to 6 PM. That coupled with a two hour plus delay in Newark used up our cushion of time, but we made it! Ah, the joys of air travel.